Taimi Olsen, formerly the associate director of the Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center, has been named as the center’s new director.
She replaces Dave Schumann, the center’s founding director, who will now split his time between faculty duties in the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management and the center. At the center, he will continue consulting with individual faculty members and work on special projects, including the Institute for Reflective Practice.
The Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center promotes, supports, and advocates for teaching and learning excellence by offering program-specific workshops, individual consultation, and online resources as well as special institutes and grant opportunities.
As associate director, Olsen has overseen several of the center’s programs, including the new faculty teaching institute, the Creative Teaching Grants, and the three-week Summer Teaching Institute on course design, which she continues to co-lead.
“UT has many excellent, creative instructors,” Olsen said, “and I look forward to working with faculty on innovative pedagogies. The Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center wants to encourage more faculty to engage with us in conversations about teaching and learning and extend our knowledge of disciplinary pedagogies.”
Prior to joining the center in 2009, Olsen was a professor at Tusculum College for twelve years. At Tusculum she held several administrative posts, including department chair, division head, and director of the college’s Competency Program. She was active in the Appalachian College Association and delivered yearly workshops on teaching issues.
Her current scholarly interests include assisting international teaching assistants, using flexible learning spaces in higher education, and examining threshold concepts within academic disciplines.
Olsen earned her doctorate in American and twentieth century literature at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1997.
For more information about the Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center, visit the website. http://tenntlc.utk.edu
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)